Concern for RCMP Members: An Illusion?

Apr 13

There is a Toronto Star article dated today that reports:

– Since 2003 the RCMP’s funding to INSET has been static at $10 Million/year
– the RCMP’s estimated budget for 2014 was $2.63 billion, a 5-per-cent decrease from 2013 and a 15-per-cent drop from four years earlier
-Since 2007 the RCMP has handed back $1.7 billion.
-In 2014 alone, the RCMP handed back $158.7 million

Do you think this reflects Senior Management’s commitment to the well-being of the membership (training, equipment, manpower, etc.)? Or rather, they want to look good to the Gov’t on the backs of the members for their own self-serving needs.

Like this:

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I am sorry to hear this Toby. Isn’t it sad that it has come to this? The members are unhappy and not being looked after like they should be. It’s just a sad situation all around. I feel so badly for members still serving who love their jobs (or did at one point) but just can’t look themselves in the mirror anymore and accept the bullshit that’s being shoved down their throats. I too am a member who will be leaving very soon because I can’t stand the way we are treated. The force is a sinking ship. Members aren’t going to put up with this crap anymore. It’s a new breed of people coming in who are highly educated and used to working in other careers. These folks are not going to tolerate being bullied, harassed, and mistreated. Those days are coming to an end for this most crooked organization. We tried to tell them this long ago, but of course they didn’t want to listen. The good old boys can only hear themselves. I wonder if the captain and his crew will stay on the ship as she goes down?

Toby, you state that you are leaving soon. You are among a growing number of active members that are leaving for other Police Departments. I recently have learned that the Winnipeg Police Service has 18 cadets in their training class that were previously members of the RCMP. Long before I retired seven years ago we were seeing a steady deterioation of the RCMP. The lack of true leadership and political interference has infiltrated this organization like a cancer. Every Commissioned Officer should hang their heads in shame for the lie they have pursued that they call leadership.

Amazing isn’t it. Senior mgmt br’ass’holes try to play it off to members as “do more with less” or worse, then pocket hard-earned tax payers money as a bonus. I don’t believe any government entity (much less the rcmp) should allow bonuses when their salaries are already funded with tax payers dollars, and then further double-down on their insults, by taking bonuses with the same pool of funds.

No wonder so many members are getting burnt out and end up off duty sick!!! Then those sick members get ostracized, harassed and blamed for being off work!! Enough of this BULLSHIT already. I’m angry. I am one of the ones who worked too hard for too long on a short-staffed shift and I am pissed about this. Our lives hang in the balance here while the brass wears fancy hats and turn their noses up at us. Who the hell do they think they are? I was sick before, but hearing this news makes me more sick. I had heard a rumor about it before but I never in my wildest dreams imagined it to be real. Now I believe it is REAL. Unbelievable.

Policing expert Paul Palango, author of a new book on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, argues we need to revamp the dysfunctional organization–or get rid of the RCMP altogether.

Over the past few years, RCMP controversies have been in the news constantly. The extent of lying revealed during the inquiry into the tasering and death of Robert Dziekanski has been mind-boggling. High-ranking RCMP officials embezzled millions from the force’s retirement funds. The RCMP Commissioner misled Parliament about what politicians knew about Maher Arar. During a recent botched drug bust, an RCMP dog dragged a Surrey man to officers who kicked and stomped on him, even after the man had apparently pointed out they had the wrong apartment number. A long-awaited RCMP investigation found no fault with its officers, even after Ian Bush was arrested outside a hockey arena for jokingly giving a false name and, 20 minutes later, was dead in a jail cell from a bullet to the back of the head.

Most of the book is old news; what makes it important is the way it gathers the staggering litany of cases the RCMP has bungled, and outlines wide-ranging negative impacts on Canadian society. Palango shows the RCMP’s politically-manipulated bumbling all over the interminable Mulroney-Schreiber-Airbus investigation, the increase in white collar crime, gang shootings, the Air India bombing, America’s frustration with our border security, the sponsorship scandal, the APEC riots, the Vancouver Olympics budget fiasco, and the alleged BC Rail bribes.

And Palango doesn’t lack credibility. From 1977 until 1990 he worked at The Globe and Mail, eventually becoming national news editor. Palango later published two widely-respected books about the RCMP, Above the Law and The Last Guardians, making him one of Canada’s most sought-after experts for radio, TV and print news media.

Lack of Local Accountability

As a federal agency, the Mounties aren’t subject to any provincial Police Act. So they may hold local meetings or discuss regional issues, but they don’t take orders from any provincial or local governments where they work. They’re beholden only to their Commissioner in Ottawa, and to vague, generalized business agreements with “client” governments. Meanwhile, says Palango, as far as everyday RCMP activities go, the Commissioner is overseen by no one.

“The Commissioner of the RCMP is probably the most powerful person in Canada other than the Prime Minister,” argues Palango.

He points to the Dziekanski case as a prime example of the delinquency endemic in this organization that’s long been responsible to no one. All the officers described Dziekanski’s actions wildly out of sync with the video evidence, RCMP officials admitted to deliberately misleading the public and, so far, no RCMP leader has fully apologized let alone announced firings or organizational changes.

“Mark my words they’re going to say, ‘Well, this was an exception to the rule,’” comments Palango. “But this is systemic. This is a force that will do anything to protect itself. It will lie, it will fudge… It will smear its enemies… It’s shown how this force operates and how it thinks, and that’s only because that’s an extraordinary event. And you have to ask yourself, well, if they did it in that case, what bigger cases and what smaller cases have they done it in?”

Thank you for sharing, Shediac. I enjoyed reading your post. It is so true that this is how the force operates and thinks. It’s the same modus operandi used over and over again, whether big scale or small scale. As a 20 year member I have seen these very tactics used time and time again, and there is definitely a pattern. And I believe the reason is just as you mentioned, the force is accountable to no one. It’s a runaway train. When there is one big cheese running the show it makes it too easy for him to wave his magic wand and suddenly all is right in his world. I have experienced my own personal share of this treatment. I have seen the cover ups and the smear campaigns. For example, we are told we have no grounds for a harassment complaint because it was a “personality conflict” instead, or if we are having issues with how we are treated by management they tell us it’s our fault because our parent’s didn’t raise us right as kids. I have been lied to by upper management…and I mean bold-faced lies over issues that were serious in nature. I guess the RCMP Core Values, like being accountable, only applies to some RCMP members. If I went around lying like this I would be fired on the spot. Am I happy about the example they set? No. It will never get better as long as they run the show this way.

I hear you as well, but when info comes forth that causes you to have to act, you pass it on to your leaders that is suppose to deal with these two-tier system upper class cases and you get set up and shot over it, it stinks right up the ladder to the top, (Ottawa).

Seems like organized crime families are running the show right now.
I will never recommend anyone get into police work with what I know right now.
To think you are making a difference is insanity because there are way to many forces working against you.

If you want to know who you are dealing with when you come face to face with liers here’s a huge hint; They don’t remember their lies so just ask them again in 3 months and out will come a different story. This is what they teach reporters & should teach police officers. Those who deal with reporters behind closed doors lying and slandering you for doing your job when they are on the other side of the fence and why they won’t do a face to face interview on camera.

I read in a book once that said that the DEVIL was a lier from the foundation of the WORLD and in him there is NO TRUTH… the rest of them are just his disciples.

A good shift & life today is when you can do your job (To Serve & Protect) and get home alive and over your career retire and not be damaged yourself.

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